Saving that parting e-mail from your first love in your inbox? Well, chances are, after you pass away, your spouse and the entire family will know about the long held secret.

This is because web email services like Hotmail and Gmail do not let users specify what should happen to their messages when they die.

In fact, email services owned by Internet giants like Google and Microsoft have a policy of keeping your data after you die and letting your next of kin or the executor of your estate access it. These services can hold tens of thousands of messages.

Accounts with Google's Gmail can hold up to 7GB - or roughly 70,000 emails with a small to medium picture attached to each and they archive the messages you've written as well as received.

When it comes to deleting the data, Microsoft's Hotmail will remove an account if it is inactive for 270 days, while Gmail leaves the responsibility to the next of kin.

Of the top three providers, only Yahoo! refuses to supply emails to anyone after the user has died. The user's next of kin can ask for the account to be closed, but cannot gain access to it.

A Yahoo! spokesperson said the only exception to this rule would be if the user specified otherwise in their will.

Meanwhile, social-networking site Facebook has recently publicised a feature called memorialisation that lets the family of deceased users keep their profile page online as a virtual tribute.

MySpace, on the other hand, says it addresses the issue of family access to sensitive data on a "case by case basis".

A spokesperson for MySpace could not rule out letting a user's next of kin log into their profile - potentially giving them access to private messages.

Microsoft has released a powerful Facebook desktop client, based on Silverlight 4.Facebook Logo We had already reviewed many Facebook applications for desktop in the past like Fishbowl, Notifications 2 or ISeeYoo. Most of these are mere notification or status update applications for Facebook. But the current Facebook desktop client from Microsoft is way ahead of these applications. The features packed in this desktop client with the simplicity and ease of use, can challenge any Adobe Air based application very easily.

The client is still a developer preview release and is available for download on Windows and Mac.

The most appealing feature of this application is the easy upload of pictures and videos right from your Windows Explorer, via drag and drop. Some of the other features included are:

* Out-of-the browser support.* It can host HTML content interactively.* It can even access your webcam, so that you capture your own image and upload it directly to Facebook.* It also has support for embedded video playback.* Most of the controls can be accessed by Right-click.* It has support for desktop notifications too.

This Facebook desktop application based on Silverlight, is released free by Microsoft and can be downloaded from here:

Google recently rolled out social networking feature named Google Buzz which is integrated directly within Gmail, you can do all kinds of social networking stuff with Buzz, like sharing updates, photos, videos and as it is built in Gmail you don’t have to setup anything, you are ready to Buzz if you use Gmail. Features of Google Buzz:

Ready to use for Gmail users, no setup required

Share stuff publically or privately

Gmail Inbox integration for comments

Connect with Twitter, Flickr, Picasa and Google Reader

Automatically pull images from posted links

Inline Videos

No Refresh required, comment updates happen in real time

Recommendation feature for interesting posts

Buzz Layer on Google Maps allows you view what’s happening nearby.

Google is still rolling out Buzz to Gmail users if you haven’t received any notifications for Buzz in your Gmail account, it will be there soon.
Google Buzz is also available for your Mobiles:
Visit buzz.google.com from your mobile phoneAndroid 2.0+ and iPhone supports all features of Google Buzz.

Before you try out any of the methods listed here, I suggest you install Firefox browser. For faster and smoother internet access, Firefox is the best browser available out there. When you are accessing proxy sites or similar sites ensure that you use Firefox not Internet Explorer. Internet censoring is now everywhere. Countries such as China, Saudi Arabia etc. routinely block many websites. Interestingly entire blogger.com and similar blog sites were banned in India not long ago. So it is no wonder that many of us are looking for ways to access blocked websites.
Last week I did an investigation into the various methods available for bypassing website access restrictions. I have shortlisted them below as ” Top 11 methods to access banned websites”.Top 11 methods to access banned websites:1. Use IP address – This is the simplest way to bypass domain name based access restrictions. Instead of the domain name such as http://ubertechblog.com use the direct IP address. To find the IP address use one of the free host to IP online conversion tools such as this or else google it.2. Use Google cache – If you are not bothered whether the content is latest on a site, Google cache is best. Do a Google search for the site and then click on the cached link below the search results.3. Use an Anonymizer – In this method you access a third party site which in turn routes your request to the required server. Some services provide URL encryption also. The problem is that most of these servers are no longer free. Do a google search for the latest list as this is a very dynamic area Following are some services which still works(free!),

Daily Best Links – Hides original URL and provides an array of access of options. The is one of the best free servers.Anonymouse – This works, but URL is visible and hence may be blocked by the filtering software.

4. Use Free VPN softwares -The best free VPN(Virtual Private Network) software available is "Your-freedom",which can be downloaded by searching on google.You need to register(which is free) to get an account.By this you would be virtually using IP address of some other country.5. Use Online Translation Tools – In this method, we can use the translation service as a web proxy. Following are the best links I know of. Again Google is your best friend for more resources.

6. Use Google Mobile search – Google mobile search works, but output may not be optimal. This is very similar to using a Web proxy.7. Use a public Proxy server – There are many free proxy servers out in the Web. Note that in order to use these you have to change internet connection settings in Internet Explorer or whatever browser you use. This is one such list.8. Get web pages via email – This is useful if you need a single Web page. Obviously accessing large files is not possible. Given below are some examples.

You can use SEND http://www.yahoo.com/ in the body of the message and send it to agora@dna.affrc.go.jp to retrieve yahoo.com home page.You can also check out services at web2mail which includes web page subscriptions.G.E Boyd has an extensive list of servers. Note that many in the list are no longer working.

9. Use Tor Distributed Proxy – Tor is an advanced proxy server using multiple anonymous servers for a single Web request. This requires an application to be downloaded and installed.10. Your own proxy server – This is an advanced technique and is probably the best. This requires your own proxy server hosted either at your home or at a hosting service provider. You can enable SSL encryption and prevent any snooping on the content as well. Also put some access control, otherwise someone can find the service and misuse it (Trust me, there are many who are looking for such an opportunity!).

11. Use alternate content providers – When everything fails, you can use alternate service providers. For example if Gmail is blocked at your place, you can take another obscure mail address and enable email forward at Gmail.Important!Be careful when you are using public proxy servers. It is possible for the guy who is hosting the service to snoop on the data that is passing through. So I wouldn’t recommend putting any important information such credit card details when you are using public proxy server method.